Saturday, October 24, 2015

Love California with it's year-round CSA boxes! As you know, CSA boxes often mean you are on the receiving end of some fruits and veg that your grandma would have been familiar with, but you? Not so much. And the less you know about these foreign edibles, the more they seem to show up in your box!
For the last few weeks, our unusual veg has been the Sunburst Squash, aka Pattypan Squash (in yellow). I do recall these from...my grandmother's garden. They are great stuffed and roasted like an acorn squash but sometimes, that is just not what you are in the mood to eat. I give you, Chocolate Cake.

Grate the pattypan until you have about 2 cups of grated squash. If you shred with a food processor, you will have thicker shreds that might not melt into the batter but will still be tender and not distract from the chocolate cake.

Add the squash to a large bowl, and mix in oil, eggs, and both sugars until well incorporated.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Didn't even bother with a mixer

You can substitute many of the ingredients. If you are going way out in left field on your substitution, look it up to make sure you are keeping proportions correct with your new item rather than doing a straight one-to-one swap. For example, just using straight whole wheat flour will result in a denser, and not necessarily moister, cake. If you want to go all whole grain, try using whole wheat pastry flour.

Shreds visible. It adds character

I don't know about you, but I could just eat it with a spoon at this point!